I always tell people who are into consoles you're all waiting for Ps4/Xbox 720 when I'm already playing it!! But honestly PC isn't as popular as consoles until they can get the price down for the machine (which I think is retarded when people go out spend 2k on a new console).

What I think we might see is a console that blends both. PS3 starting doing this with your ability to get on Netflix and stuff. We might start seeing consoles that you can get a youtube/fb apps for.

PC gaming's niche is in the ability to build your own. With consoles you really can't mod it that much.

What I want is a game where I can where an entire suit!! Virtual reality kind of world. That'd be ccccrrraaazzaaayyy.

I think "SteamBox" and services like it are going to be the way to go, that way you can get all the benefits of PC gaming and less of the perceived difficulties associated with PC gaming.--Support Bacteria -- It's the Only Culture Some People Have

I agree with all that you said above. But to parents $250 for a console for $500 + for a gaming pc/laptop? What sounds cheaper upfront? Parents seem to no realize how many $60.00 games the children keep getting after.

BUT I do see a slight change. One being LoL. Tons of younger people are getting into that and it doesn't take an extreme gaming pc to play it. If anything it gets their foot in the door so we can suck them in.

its price point will be its breaking point. If it is priced reasonably enough it will take off into orbit. if it costs as much as a large screen monitor it will explode just after clearing the launch pad.

Mainly because it will be a hard sell to get someone to spend say 600-700 bucks on these when they already blew close to that much on a big monitor.

If it does take off, one thing that will gain is people will learn their keyboards better while gaming and never look down for their hotkeys again.

I Hope it does take off and get wide spread, We have been hoping for proper VR for ages in the PC gaming world and now we have the GPU horsepower to drive it where as before VR took dedicated hardware to really work well.--[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports

Like many of you, I had heard the hype about the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, the big names who are backing the device, and the successful Kickstarter that funded its further development. Having seen how awful other attempts at VR have been over the years, I was both skeptical and excited to give it a try myself. When I found out the Oculus guys would be exhibiting at a pre-CES press event that I attend each year, I made a mental note to go talk with them and see if I could try the headset for myself.

Turns out that was more difficult that you might think, because they were swamped by whole teams of press bearing microphones and giant cameras for most of the evening. I kept coming back, though, and eventually, as the event was ending, I found a quick opening and was able to slip on the Rift VR headset myself.

As a veteran of other 3D and virtual reality display schemes, I was in for several surprises.

The first one was simply the fact that I could wear the headset comfortably over my glasses. The big, foam-and-rubber ring around the Rift encompassed my prescription frame and sealed up fine without pushing it into my face. That was something new.

My surprise over that fact was soon swept away by what my eyes took in as soon as the headset was secured. Immediately, I was plunged into an immersive environment with a true and robust sense of depth, with none of the flickering or momentary disorientation and focus problems associated with most stereoscopic 3D schemes. The depth was there immediately, and I soaked in the tangible sense of reality as the Oculus guys explained that they had built in much more separation than most stereo display systems. The result is that objects in the virtual worldâin this case, an Unreal engine-based demo called "Epic Citadel"âlook like real, three-dimensional objects, not just a cardboard-cutout knight standing in front of a cardboard-cutout flag, as in most stereo display schemes. Having a truly separate image for each eye allows for more depth, which works wonders.

Depth is only part of the experience, though. Much of the magic came from the fact that the headset was tracking even the subtlest movements of my enormous noggin and adjusting the field of view to compensate. You can look side to side, look up, look down, even bend backwards and sideways to look at the sky over your shoulder, and you'll see the proper portion of the game world in front of you. If you've tried VR headsets that attempt this feat in the past, you'd rightly be skeptical about this aspect of the experience. The thing is, the Rift tracks your movements so quickly and fluidly that it actually works, like gangbusters, tricking your brain into accepting its alternate reality.

The combination of depth and fluid head tracking is a potent cocktail, one that gave me a bit of a buzz and a sense of elation, either over the possibilities of such technology or because my visual subsystem was being fooled into releasing crazy endorphins. Maybe both. The Oculus dudes shoved a gamepad into my hands and encouraged me to "walk" around in the game world, taking in the sights. Immediately, I decided that the texture-mapped stone walls in the environment needed some help via POM or tessellationâthey looked too flat as they were. I made my way into the demo's gothic-style cathedral and found myself transfixed by the stone columns and arches reflected in its marble floor; the mix of depth and not-depth was entirely correct and truly stunning.

Even with the show floor buzzing around me, I was immersed. Heck, I was only vaguely distracted by one of the Oculus guys telling another a charming story about John Carmack's hilariously earnest humility in requesting a new strap when the one on his headset broke.

I wandered around the game world further, for maybe five minutes or so, becoming increasingly aware that I was probably taking time away from others who were waiting in line behind me. As I finally, reluctantly slipped off the goggles, the sense of elation peaked, capped by a realization that I blurted out to the Oculus guys: "I could keep doing this for... hours." Not only does the Rift provide a sense of reality unlike anything else, but it's so comfortable and convincing that I wanted to remain in the virtual space and had no sense of fatigue from having been there.

For me, this was the highlight of CESâof perhaps the last several years' worth of CES attendance, one of those moments when you see something truly new and astonishing and cool. Of course, I'm happy to see that the Oculus guys have the open ecosystem of PC gaming supporting them in various ways, from the endorsements by big-name developers to the giant Nvidia logo in their display booth to the scores of Kickstarter supporters.

The Rift is still a work in progress. Although I've heard the claim that the "effective resolution" of the display is extremely high since you can move your head anywhere and see a "portion" of the total "image" being shown, the reality is that the headset would benefit from higher pixel density and perhaps better color reproduction, too. I've heard that the Rift makes some folks feel sick, still, and needs even quicker responses to overcome that drawback. And the headsets up for pre-order on the Oculus website are simply part of a developer kit. There's very little content geared for the Rift at present, and those first headsets will hopefully help developers begin to rectify that situation. The consumer products will have to come later.

Still, if you have a chance to try a Rift headset for yourself, do not pass it up. When you peer into it, you'll be seeing the future, and you'll come away convinced that it looks pretty darned astounding.

I've had consoles of some sort since the mid 80's when I managed to con my mom into buying me an Atari 7800 for Christmas. Was the only thing I got and I had to shovel snow the rest of the winter in addition....and I was only 6.

I've had the following consoles throughout my life:Atari 7800Nintendo Entertainment System (both generations)Super Nintendo Entertainment System (both generations)Sega GenesisTurbo-GraFX16Nintendo Gameboy (the original one with the monochrome screen)Sega GameGearNintedo 64PlaystationPlaystation 2 (both generations)Xbox360

I've also been gaming on PC's since about the mid-80's as well when we used an Apple IIe in school and played Oregon Trail all the up to my current rig sporting a Core i5-2500k, GTX570, and some other goodies.

I feel that I have plenty of gaming experience on both sides of the proverbial fence and I would have to say that the future of gaming probably lies in the console market. Now, that's not to say that gaming on a PC will be a thing of the past, but I definitely think that console gaming will outpace PC gaming and there are several reasons why.

The first being cost. I spent around $1500 building my current rig and around $400 on the Xbox360. Of course, if you add in the 42" LCD HDTV I bought to go with the Xbox, then we're up to about $1200 total. Still cheaper than the PC and the majority of people don't buy a new TV and game console at the same time. Granted, it's common for games to run in the $50 - $60 range on a console, but that's not much more expensive than some of the top new titles for the PC. Farcry 3 - $50. Assassin's Creed 3 - $50. Borderlands 2 - $60.

Second is availability. I don't know anyone who doesn't have a TV to hook a game console to. I do, however, know several people who don't own a computer or if they do, it's at least 5 years old. Kids and even a lot of adults can pick up a game controller and play a game a lot easier than they can install, configure, and play a PC game. Of course, there are some games that are idiotproof and I'm not counting the abominations that Zynga puts out like Farmville.

Third is the hardware. You have a PS3? You can play any PS3 game. You have an Xbox360? You can play an Xbox360 game. You want to run Metro2033 or Battlefield 3? Uh oh...better check your specs to make sure you have the hardware horsepower to run them.

Fourth is franchise exclusivity which I AM touched on. Sony has the Gran Turismo franchise, Microsoft has Forza. You can't get any Madden game on the PC.

Fifth is developers. It's a lot easier to develop games for a system which has standardized hardware instead of trying to account for hundreds or thousands of possible combinations of PC hardware, operating systems, driver versions, etc. This is the reason you see a lot of console only titles and why a lot of titles appear on a console first and then make their way over to the PC side of things.

In the end I'm still a hardcore PC gamer and I would rather play on one instead of a console. That's not to say I don't enjoy console gaming, because I do. But overall, I still prefer PC gaming to console gaming.--I'll be stretching out the rhyme like gravity stretches time.

The greed from console game publishers will push gaming towards a mini-pc (think raspberry pi on steroids). I say this mainly due to the effort currently put forth to eliminate the ability to play a used game on the future consoles. Console games are already too high for what we get, add in the fact that:

1. Most come with locked content that costs additional money, basically increasing the cost for the game should you want the "full experience".

2. Many game companies are using exclusivity rights and release delays for other platforms to push players to buy a specific version (yes I am looking at you Skyrim).

3. Removing the ability to play rented or borrowed copies will push developers to spend a majority of their development time on downloadable demos, only to release a pile of steaming you-know-what once the game is released.

4. Game developers are realizing that hard copy games just add to the cost. TL2 is extremely cheap in part because they don't have to deal with the production costs beyond development.

Honestly, the biggest threat to console gaming is that used-game ban bs. If it goes through, it will be the end of console gaming until a newcomer emerges.

$60+ a game? none of the games have the same replay value like F2P PC games.

Depends on your tastes... personally, there aren't many f2p games that end up being worth playing, or are only f2p in the sense of being "pay to win" or where you have to pay to unlock every single little thing to make it bearable.

I will concede there are games I like that I wouldn't conceivably want to play on anything other than a console, or at least a key/mouse setup. And the last console that really had that kind of support prominently was the Sega Dreamcast.

Something tells me you also have a smartphone. Yet it's the APPs that make that smartphone worth using. By this logic, are you also ragging on your smartphone as well?

Not to mention, PC gaming isn't perfect by a longshot. API's like OpenGL and DirectX help to a point, especially compared to all the vendor-specific optimizations for cards way back in the 9x/DOS era. We're a long way from having to command-line every single step to get a game to work. But it is by no means a perfect solution.

I personally don't see why it has to be a zero-sum situation. There are games that consoles have that are enjoyable, and will never see the light of day on PC. At the same time, there are games on PC that either end up best on that, and/or would never see the light of day on the consoles. Why not just enjoy both of them? --Because, f*ck Sony

I pray thats its not consoles, I don't want to have to game on a locked down to hell and back box. Heck MS will ban you from live if they find out you use a KB+M on the xbox(yes its possible). No mods, on consoles, which royally sucks. Plus what are all the games made on? You sure can't code the games on a console right now.

the ps3 came out in 2006, as did the core 2 duo e6600, according to wikipedia the 8000 series cards came out in 2006. Sure you can't play at max settings but an e6600 and 8800gtx can still play most everything. Sure it wont be at 1080p max settings, but guess what? neither is a console, most of the console stuff is 800x600 now days at min settings. Plus you can overclock the 8800 and e6600(to nearly 4.0ghz in the e6600 case)

don't get me wrong I have been a console gamer most of my life, truth be told I did start out on the pc but then it got expensive cause my parents old got prebuilts. So we got a gamecube. I will never give up console gaming so long as nintendo makes consoles, but I will never buy an xbox nor a playstation, freaking halo and cod nearly killed gaming as a whole by attracting the frat bros.

Now, all that said. If you are buying a $1000+ pc for just gaming that is not what I would call a wise dession. Because a pc game to hundreds times more than a console, I personally have a roughly 1k build but I am a CS major and use my hardware for much more than gaming. You aren't restricted to just a dumb gaming box, you have a full pc. Meaning full internet access, photoshop. video editing, coding, (gaming)servers, anything, no limit to what you can do on a pc.

You can build a $600 pc that is pretty freaking kick-ass, before you say thats a lot of money keep in mind thats what the ps3 cost at launch. Not to mention when you factor in inflation its less than that. For $350-$400 you can get an apu apu(5800k) based system with 8GB ddr3 1866 ram, and play pretty much everything on the market at 720(more demanding games) to 1080p(less demanding games) at med settings. Way more than a console can do for about the same price. Not to mention all the free games(planet side 2, black mesa source, tf2, just to name a 3) that you can't get for free(some even at all) on consoles. Older DOS games via DOSbox, humble bundles for dirt cheap games, steam sales for cheap games. Sure there is the used game market for consoles(and I do partake of it regularly) that can get lower priced games, but if the ps4 has the thing where a disk is tied to a console for life then there goes the used game market for the ps4.

I love consoles, or rather what consoles used to be, I hate modern consoles trying to be locked down pcs. I think the steam box, like El Quintron mentioned, may be a strong force in the future. A prebuilt gaming pc with the price and support/ease of use of a console. Plus it can be dual booted with windows which is kinda cool. Maybe ARM could be the future too, not necessarily on tablets/smart phones, but laptops and desktops possible just replacing x86.

No one knows what the future holds for gaming, I just pray it isn't the modern/current console way.

No, you can't build a $600 PC that can game. It costs $600 just to get one GPU powerful enough to handle some of this stuff to begin with!

Many people do not like to franken-build. I personally don't because then something older fails and your total cost just keeps adding up beyond if you'd just accounted for starting fresh in the first place. And you're also not counting a copy of Windows at the very least to use the hardware. And don't give me any of that Linux crap. Linux never works with new hardware, and even if you did get it to work, it's another nightmare just to get any games to work.

And what's with this "800x600" crap? The only thing that matters is what's being sent to the TV. Because as long as the TV is getting 1080p or 720p (in the case of 90~something percent of PS3 games), there's no additional input lag to suffer through when playing the game.--Because, f*ck Sony

"No, you can't build a $600 PC that can game. It costs $600 just to get one GPU powerful enough to handle some of this stuff to begin with!"

For the love of all that is holy please tell me you are trolling, I just don't want to believe I live in a world where people are THAT ignorant.

First off yes CAN build a gaming pc for $600, I know people who have done so for less. ~$100 for a 650 or 7770 $190 for the cpu+mobo(i3 and $50 motherboard, or an amd equivalent), $50 for ram(8GB ddr3), $50 for a case, $50 for a hard drive(500GB), $50 for the psu, $100 for windows. That will play pretty much everything on the market at 1080p and med settings

"And what's with this "800x600" crap? The only thing that matters is what's being sent to the TV. Because as long as the TV is getting 1080p or 720p (in the case of 90~something percent of PS3 games), there's no additional input lag to suffer through when playing the game."

800z600 = 600p. 600p IS what is being sent from the ps3 to the tv, since most modern ps3 games are far too demanding for a ps3 to render them in even 720p. the ps3 just stretches/rearranges the image to fit the higher res screen. All while the ps3 is playing games at its lowest settings.

Even if you aren't "franken building" as you so put it, for $800 you can get a decent prebuilt. Heres a good mid-range gaming pc for under $800. »www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ··· 83227436. Will play most everything on 1080p at med settings. Or you can go to ibuypower or ecollegepc's website and customize one.

"Many people do not like to franken-build. I personally don't because then something older fails and your total cost just keeps adding up beyond if you'd just accounted for starting fresh in the first place.

And you're also not counting a copy of Windows at the very least to use the hardware. "

Yeah because consoles NEVER break, and its not like you have to buy a new console if something does break. *cough RROD cough*And its not like with a pc all you do is replace it if something breaks. Bad hard drive? Put a new one in. Only time you need to re install windows is when you get a new cpu+mobo, and usually there is a new version of windows out by the time you do so that works out fine.

" And don't give me any of that Linux crap. Linux never works with new hardware, and even if you did get it to work, it's another nightmare just to get any games to work."

alright, just gonna say it. you are an idiot. There is just no other word I can use to describe someone who is too lazy to even learn about something before that start bashing it/spreading false information. I have not had a problem getting linux to work with new hardware, plus steambox is going to run on linux.

EDITS: a bit of clarity and re-adding stuff I accidentally backspaced on.

It costs $600 just to get one GPU powerful enough to handle some of this stuff to begin with!

Pure non sense. If we're talking triple monitors, or gaming on a 27" monitor at 1440 or 1600p on ultra settings, then yes, you'll need a 500 dollar GPU. Gaming at 1080p though is a whole different story. A $200-$250 GPU will work perfect and destroy most game on high to ultra settings.

Even a recent game like Hitman Absolution requires a minimum of a 660 Ti or better to even try to play at 1080p. And back when Bioshock was new, it was pretty much required to use an 8800 series if you wanted to play with a level of graphical detail to be at least on par with what the console was doing. Bioshock on Medium already looked worse than what the console was already doing, and this was measured and documented as well.

Secondly, uh, no. 800x600 is not a resolution available on either console's output. You clearly don't own one because you'd see it plain as day yourself when setting it up. 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, and if you happen to use the VGA adaptor on 360, 1024x768 or 1366x768. The 360 can output every game in its library at 1080p. And most games on PS3 only go up to 720p; and you have some like Bioshock - again - that output in 1080p... albeit with the fake requirement to do so only via HDMI.

Thirdly, I would not trust a $50 PSU as far as I can throw it. Going cheap on PC hardware has always led to regret and failure. And of course none of this takes into account the cost of monitors, or the cost involved to appropriately play across multiple monitors. Saint's Row the Third may natively support up to 3x1 monitor setups, but I certainly wouldn't try it even on my GTX 285. And considering that at least one of my friends who went to iBuyPower has since had to file no less than two Better Business Bureau complaintsand seek an attorney for the defective junk-bin they sold him, the only phrase to come to mind by someone recommending them is "I don't think so."--Because, f*ck Sony

longevity, a game console seems to be able to last 5 years without any major invest in hardware, after initial purchase.Where as a gaming computer can hit you for close to, if not over a thousand bucks. Then in about a year or so, you'll be wanting to upgrade the video card. And decent gaming video cards are a hundred bucks or more.

Currently my PS3 has a lot of functionality to it. I can get video from the Play station store, Hulu plus, Crackle, Amazon prime. I can download games and game content from the play station store.

So yes, computers maybe nice, but they seem to have a shorter life span when it comes to games. Yes you can extend the lifespan by buying new hardware, but that gets expensive.--Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?.

The fact still stands that you cannot build a complete system for $600 as you so claim.

Hell, a good motherboard for either platform alone already runs between $2~300, and that doesn't account RAM, CPU (keep in mind, none of the benchmarks I listed run on anything other than a 3770K, which is also a $300-something chip).

And per my experience, that $50 PSU you so laud will not only not have enough rails or connectors to properly outfit a gamer-worthy box, but will end up costing you what you spend on the rest of the system later when it (and let's not kid ourselves, it will) spectacularly combust itself in failure and take out half the hardware in the machine with it.

When I first bought my 8800GTS, it was a $400 part. Same thing with the GTX 285. Both of which I purchased the models with a higher amount of video memory for staying power. As such, it's been my experience that those GPU's outfitted with more vRAM tend to remain useful a helluva lot longer. Cheapest available 4GB RAM nVIDIA card on Newegg is about $440 as of this writing. Maybe if you're lucky, you could gamble with a refurb model for $380, if it ever becomes available.

And even The Witcher, a game that was built on DirectX 9, manages to be lauded for its graphics, but last I read an article about pushing it thanks to their release of the "extended edition" and graphics upgrades the company did, Hard|OCP wouldn't recommend anything short of an SLi or X-Fire to run with everything on.

Also, I've yet to come across a single TV that didn't look like complete ass when used as a monitor, regardless of inputs supported. Only time I've seen a TV handle a VGA signal well is when coming from the Dreamcast, and even then it admits up front it's an 800x480 signal.--Because, f*ck Sony

$60+ a game? none of the games have the same replay value like F2P PC games.

Additionally, a console with 2% of the functionality of a PC is garbage..

netflix, FB... blah blah... thats nothing!

going to have to buy a new console for every app created?

APPS are the dumbing down of the PC world... an abomination

I seldom pay 60 dollars for a game.I subscribe to Blockbuster at home, and am able to rent games for my PS3. I used to use gamefly, but the Blockbuster service saves me 5 bucks a month.Then if there is a game I want, I buy it used. Why pay 60 plus bucks for a game, when in 6 months to a year you can find it in the bargain bin for 10 to 20 bucks.I have purchased new games that ended up in the bargain bin, because the store ordered to many copies and the game was a flop.

Why would I need to buy a new console for every app created? My 4 year old PS3 is running the new apps just fine.--Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?.